In my editing of Legend of the Protectors, my friend, Tes Hilaire, asked me to work on my visceral reactions. Okay, if I knew what they were, it would make it easier to work on them. So I did my research and came to the conclusion, this was a very important part of writing. So, hence this blog post.

What is a Visceral Reaction?

Ebbi Thomas at Effective Mind Control dot com had the answer. These “reactions are triggered by emotions within milliseconds, ahead of your conscious awareness. Adrenalin increases to prepare your body for a fight or flight response. Your heart beats increase to improve blood supply. Blood pressure rises and breathing changes. Acidity increases in the stomach. Your excretory system prepares to clear toxin. Your endocrine system produces the adrenal hormone cortisol.

A visceral reaction occurs quickly, before you become aware of it. Paul Ekman, the famous emotions scientist, reported ‘We become aware a quarter, or half second after the emotion begins. I do not choose to have an emotion, to become afraid, or to become angry. I am suddenly angry. I can usually figure out later what someone did that caused the emotion.’ The nervous system processes all the available information and drives you to anger, or despair, within just half a second. Each visceral response occurs before you know it. Nature also provided laughter to counter this response.”

Well, our characters can’t always laugh off these reactions to keep from getting a stomach ulcer, but that’s okay. We need to be aware of these reactions and add them in our writing.

That said, I’m working on this and hope to improve my writing with Visceral Reactions.

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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The best way to get objective, honest feedback no doubt comes from a professional editor. But let me tell ya, I checked into that. Editors are expensive!

Sometimes we are blessed to find a great critique group or friend to help us edit. If we are REALLY lucky we get someone who will tell us how it is, without having to pay for it! But let’s be honest, not all of us are lucky enough to find someone in the industry that gives the right kind of feedback.

Although friends and family are GREAT to boost your ego and tell you how wonderful your book is and how every little edit has made the book a sure fire seller, they aren’t the best people to take advice from.

So what’s a writer to do? How can we tell if our book is really ready or worthy to get published?

Here are some good indicators that your book may need some help…

1. You’ve found a few beta readers who are also writers. They were super excited to read your novel, but two chapters in…they stop reading and suddenly you aren’t hearing from them. It’s possible your book may need some help. If they aren’t begging for more, chances are, you’re not hooking them enough.

2. You’ve broken down and sent out tons of query letters. You’ve been reassured that your query is flawless, but you are still getting form rejections. It’s a good indication that your book may need some help. If your first chapters are not able to get you any type of feedback, chances are, you’re not hooking them enough.

3. Your friends and family aren’t too excited to keep up with your changes, updates and edits. In short, they are bored. Friends and family are usually our BEST critics, if we can’t hook them our book DEFINITELY needs help!

If you have experienced any of these my best advice is to work on the beginning of your story. Make it full of hooks and impossible to set down. Just like Julie Andrews said, “Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!” (Oh how I love The Sound of Music!)

Have you ran into any other signs that make you sit back and think, “Maybe my book needs a little more help?”

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Marybeth is an aspiring novelist currently working on her second novel. For more information visit her website www.marybethsmith.com. She also has a blog Desperately Searching for my Inner Mary Poppins where you can keep up on her moments as mother, wife and writer..

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After three years of work on my first novel, I was pretty exhausted. I’d written the initial draft of WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW in third person,  then another version in the first person voices of the three main characters. The third year found me back in the third person for another round.  I was starting to resent my characters, wondering why they were taking so long to tell their story, and hoping they didn’t plan to drag it into a Michener-length piece of fiction.

My editor advised a detour from the novel to explore the backroads. She suggested I take background situations and build short stories around them. The result would be a better understanding of the characters, finished work for literary journals and contest submissions, and . . . a needed break from the tedium of the novel.

In the next six months I crafted over ten stories. Several pieces were flash fiction of between 250 & 1,000 words.  The others were in the 2,500 – 3,000 word range. They were sent to journals and contests, and because there was a variety of material, I had the ability to send out a new story if I received a positive rejection that turned down the submission but invited future work.

I went back to the novel with a renewed interest and fresh ideas about structure. Certain character traits came to light as I wrote the short pieces, leading me to approach the novel-length story from a different angle. It developed a beginning, middle, and end that made sense in under 90,000 words. I had a finished, polished manuscript within the year.

That’s the “writing life” part of the story. Now for the “marketing” part. After a few of the stories were accepted for publication, I added to my agent query, “Stories based on the lead characters have been published online and in anthologies,” giving credibility to my writing and my characters .

At a recent conference, an agent suggested that I post the unpublished stories on my website and then do promotion to drive readers to the site. She noted a recent client who did this. The traffic numbers helped to build a selling point for the publisher pitch, showing that readers were already familiar with the characters and would be inclined to buy the book for more of their story.

The first of my RITA & SYLVIE stories posted last month at www.gingerbcollins.com. It’s the initial step in a campaign that began as a detour and will hopefully serve as the path to agent representation and publication of my first novel.

BIO

Ginger B. Collins writes short fiction and creative non-fiction. Her work appears online and has been published in Freckles to Wrinkles, Silver Boomers, and the newly released Scratch Anthology of Short Fiction. She recently completed her first novel. Read excerpts at www.gingerbcollins.com.

In her blog, OFF THE TOP OF MY RED HEAD, Ginger applies a past career in sales, marketing, and PR to her new role as author, sharing links and writer resources while exploring subjects like social media, agent search, and writer platforms. All writers are invited to follow the blog and share experiences. http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com.

Ginger and her husband, Melvin, are avid sailors, and would be content to spend life onboard, cruising coastal waters and exploring land from the shoreline in. Until then, they winter in the Southeast and summer in Atlantic Canada.

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I have this friend who is a wonderful writer and is sweet and helpful and amazing and any other ‘nice’ adjective you can think of—including smart. Smart, she most certainly is. Oh, and she was taught how to share well. She shared these tips with me and many others, so here I am, paying it forward.

These are Rachel May’s 8 Tips to Better Writing::

1: Read your work out loud.

This one is the most important in RayMay’s eyes. And she’s quite right.

What does this do?: By reading your work out loud, you will pick up grammar mistakes and flow problems. Also, you will hear how your audience is hearing it in their heads. If you trip over a phrase, most likely your reader will as well.

2: Vary your sentence length.

Why is this important?: Sentences that are all the same length tend to make the reader hear your story in monotone. By varying up line/sentence length you add rhythm and flow to your writing. To tell whether or not you have sentences the same length, print out the first page of your story, take a pen or pencil and at the start of every sentence draw a line through the words. When you get to a period end the line. At the next sentence do the same thing. Follow that same system through your first paragraph and subsequent paragraphs. If every line appears to be the same length. Cut some of your sentences down into short ones. Read the entire paragraph out loud to double check that you haven’t taken anything out that’s imperative or shortened a sentence where it should, in fact, be longer.

3: Write great descriptions.

Why is this important?: By writing vivid descriptions, you are involving the reader beyond just words and dialogue. Physically imagine yourself in that particular situation…you already know this I’m sure…but it can’t hurt to remind you.
Also, another way to get descriptions just right is to imagine yourself explaining whatever it is you’re trying to explain to someone who doesn’t have that sense. If I were blind, how would you convey to me a sunset? If I had no sense of smell, how would you convey a scent to me?

4: Dialogue can make or break a story.

Why is dialogue important?: Dialogue is important because when you write great dialogue it adds a whole new level to your story. It gives your characters a voice. Try to think about the people you know—how do they respond to mundane conversations or important conversations? Write dialogue that feels natural. Every person has a different rhythm to their speech patterns; try to give each character a different rhythm to their dialogue. This will help the reader differentiate between your characters.

5: Make (-ing) your friend.

Why are -ing words important?: Sometimes starting a sentence with a gerund helps to add a different feel to a sentence.

Example:

She ran as fast as she could to catch the bus, but still missed it.
Despite running as fast as she could, she still missed the bus.
Running as fast as she could didn’t matter, she still missed the bus.

Basically these sentences are pretty much saying the same thing in different ways. Determine which way flows better with the sentence before and the sentence after.

6: Make each chapter stand on its own.

What does this mean?: This means that a person should feel intrigue in each chapter. That if I picked up your book and turned to chapter 14, I should feel the pull of your story as strongly as if I started from the beginning. And every chapter should end with a hook so that it compels me to read the subsequent chapters.

7: Characters with a point.

What does this mean?: I’m not saying that your characters should have pointy heads or have daggers coming out of their skin. No. I’m saying that you should not introduce a character that has no point. Why? Because if you introduce a character without a real point to push your story along, we as the reader are thinking, “well all that time we spent reading about that unimportant character was wasted.” So, if you have superfluous characters in your story, as cruel as this sounds, KILL THEM. No will notice and no one will care. Well, you will. But your readers will thank you for it.

8: Add moral dilemmas.

Why should you do this?: When I was in school my writing professors told me that stories, especially YA stories and children’s stories, should have a moral. Make sure if you’re writing for the children genre or YA genre that there is some sort of lesson to be learned. Take a cue from Aesop’s Fable’s and Charlotte’s Web. They have a moral. Even the more complex YA tales have morals—they may not be as easily defined as say, a Dr. Seuss tale, but they are there. I promise you!

Hope these tips help you! I know they did me.

What tips do you all have? What are your writing secrets?

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Since winning her first writing competition at a young age, Eden Tyler, has only fallen more in love with the written word. She uses her English, Psychology, and Sociology backgrounds to create depth to her own stories and novels while contributing to and running websites about writing. This is what fulfills her, along with working as Co-Editor for Fuel Your Writing, but she also enjoys the freelance work that puts food on the table (and that ever-essential roof overhead) for her family.

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I love to beta read. It’s a sick pleasure of mine. If I don’t have a book to beta read on my iPhone, I beg for one on twitter.

Most of the time I find something I love in the story. I’ve even made some great friends from it. On occasion, I’ve even read a book or two right before a big publisher bought them. I love doing that, and I love being able to help a fellow author find the flow in the story.

But, on very rare occasion–I’ve read books that suck.

Now, before you boo me, and I understand if you want to boo me–just hear me out.

When I read these books, it’s hard to tell the truth. I mean what am I supposed to do? Send them a quick email explaining that I think their never has any chance of ever seeing publication?

Um, no. That’s the worst idea ever. Don’t do that. Don’t be a pompous butt head. Because, let’s face it–Who am I to say that? I’m just an unpublished author myself, and I have no right to tell anyone their stuff sucks, and guess what.

Unless you’re Stephen King… you don’t either.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t tell them their manuscript needs work, but you need to tell them what’s good too.

Find the diamond in the rough.

Who knows, maybe they rock at dialogue, maybe they do a fabulous job describing a fancy palace, heck… maybe they have superb comma placement. Whatever it is, tell them about it.

Now, about the fact that their book sucks, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to tell them why it sucks, and what you would do to make it better. Just remember: a little bit goes a long way!

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This week, I was lucky enough to have editor and author, Ray Rhamey, decide if my work was worthy of a read. Was my writing up to par? Could I make him turn the page?

I allowed Ray and others to decide if I had a strong enough beginning to make them read on. The first sixteen lines of both my prologue and my first chapter were posted on his website, Flogging the Quill (FtQ), for all the (internet) world to see and judge.

Was this bravery or stupidity?
I think I was brave—for what it’s worth…
One cannot gain without first giving up something, right? In this case, and in Sarah’s (who did the same thing a few weeks ago), something great came of the risk.

I learned that while my writing is strong in and of itself (basically no grammatical errors), I could stand to improve. And I knew that. But now I know how—or at least have different suggestions on hand to work with … since I’ve learned to take all feedback with a grain of salt.

Going into this critique, I knew my first chapter wasn’t going to pass the test, but was fairly sure my prologue would. Eh, it was half and half for both, barely—sort of. Ray turned the page of my prologue. He read on in the first chapter strictly because of the prologue. But he did say my work was something he would’ve liked to have read more of… So who knows?
All I know for sure is that my doubts about my first chapter were founded, and that even though my prologue seemed great, it could use improvement. More clarification. More of a sense of the evil involved. Just more, you know?

With Ray’s phenomenal notes he sent me and what was posted on the page by both him and other writers, I already have a far better version of the prologue. But he’s so phenomenal in how he edits that he didn’t take away my voice. It’s still my work—my words, my style, my pacing, my cadence, my everything—but more. It’s more good. Yes, I did just write that. OK, so my prologue is better (is that better?).

If any of you feel like checking it out, have at it, but just know my work has already improved.
I suppose the point of this post is to make others aware (although you should already know!) of the fabulous Mr. Rhamey’s site and book and his excellent advice.
But I also want to see how you all feel about editors and others critiquing your work. We’ve had two critiques on here, so this also my way of questioning what you’ve thought of those!
Is it too risky to throw yourself to the world, where you can possibly lose yourself in the process? Can you lose your voice and your plan for the story?
Or is it an invaluable tool that everyone should take advantage of?
My vote is for the latter.
How about y’all?

{Oh, and what about a first page critique – first sixteen lines? We’ve done the first five sentences and the first 500 words plus query, if one was available—but what about the first ~230 words? (The first page of an average paperback.) Can you get readers to read on to that oh-so-important second page??}

Thoughts….

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Since winning her first writing competition at a young age, Eden Tyler, has only fallen more in love with the written word. She uses her English, Psychology, and Sociology backgrounds to create depth to her own stories and novels while contributing to and running websites about writing. This is what fulfills her, along with working as Co-Editor for Fuel Your Writing, but she also enjoys the freelance work that puts food on the table (and that ever-essential roof overhead) for her family.

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